Federal agents on Thursday arrested Yih-Shyan “Wally” Liaw, a prominent Silicon Valley executive deep in the AI ecosystem who cofounded Supermicro in 1993 and is a close confidante of CEO and chairman Charles Liang. The stock tumbled roughly 12% in after-hours trading following the news.
According to a stunning release from the Department of Justice, an indictment was unsealed in Manhattan federal court on Thursday charging Liaw, 71, and two others with allegedly working in secret to divert billions in Supermicro AI servers to China in violation of U.S. export control laws. The two alleged co-conspirators charged alongside Liaw include Supermicro’s Taiwan general manager Ruei-Tsang “Steven” Chang, who remains a fugitive, and a third-party fixer named Ting-Wei “Willy” Sun, who was also taken into custody on Thursday.
